Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Watching video online has become main-stream as more people have broadband Internet access. Most of the networks offer video streaming services for some of their content. Yet, not all video streaming services are created equal.

Today, we look at the performance of the most popular video streaming players on the Internet. The performance is a key factor in watching video, as more efficient players allow users to continue to use their computer while watching a video. Many can play a video in a small window on an iMac or a second display on a MacBook. Performance also effects battery life for those times when power is not available.

Below is a list of some online video streaming services and how much CPU usage it took to download and play the video at the same time. This is an average percent, as CPU usage can vary throughout the video playback. The test was performed on a 2011 MacBook Air with a 1.8GHz i7 processor. The i7 is a dual-core chip, which is capable of 200 percent CPU usage.

As the Table shows, Adobe Flash is the main way websites use to stream video content across the Internet. The performance of Adobe Flash varies widely from service to service. YouTube and Dailymotion have the most efficient Flash player at 25 percent CPU usage. The worst performing Flash players use around 60 percent and come from NBC, ESPN, and Vimeo. It was surprising to see Vimeo so high, as they are a video sharing service, like YouTube. While Hulu only came in at 35 percent, their free service only offers 480p (Standard Definition) video. For Hulu Plus subscribers, Hulu will probably be around 60 percent as well.

For most sites, 480p streaming video in Flash consumes around 36 percent of a MacBook Air's resources. Bump that up to 60 percent for 720p video streaming. It looks like Dailymotion and YouTube have optimized their video player to consume much less of the CPU for HD content.

The biggest loser in this test is Netflix, the largest video streamer on the Internet. It uses 75 percent of the CPU in the MacBook Air for a standard video. Netflix uses Microsoft's Silverlight, which looks to be the main problem. The MacBook Air has a hard time displaying Netflix streaming content on a second screen while basic work is being done on the main screen. This is not true with YouTube. Silverlight is the worst method for streaming video online.

The biggest winner here is direct streaming of h.264 formatted videos using HTML5. Both Apple's movie trailer site and some YouTube videos stream with this method and at 12 percent use half the CPU compared to YouTube's videos with Flash. H.264 is clearly the least CPU intensive way to watch content online.

Watching video online continues to grow at a rapid pace. Video streaming services continue to expand their content, but this is not the only thing they need to improve. These services need to continue to improve their player efficiencies to reduce processor dependency and increase battery life. While Silverlight and Netflix are the worst performers, direct h.264 streaming continues to be the gold standard for streaming sites.

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